Many food products, such as fruit juice, pasteurized or UHT (ultra-high-temperature treated) milk, wine, tomato sauce, etc., are sold in packages made of sterilized packaging material.
A typical example of this type of package is the parallelepiped-shaped package for liquid or pourable food products known as Tetra Brik Aseptic (registered trademark), which is made by folding and sealing laminated strip packaging material.
The packaging material has a multilayer structure substantially comprising a base layer for stiffness and strength, which may be defined by a layer of fibrous material, e.g. paper, or mineral-filled polypropylene material; and a number of layers of heat-seal plastic material, e.g. polyethylene film, covering both sides of the base layer.
In the case of aseptic packages for long-storage products, such as UHT milk, the packaging material also comprises a layer of gas- and light-barrier material, e.g. aluminium foil or ethyl vinyl alcohol (EVOH) film, which is superimposed on a layer of heat-seal plastic material, and is in turn covered with another layer of heat-seal plastic material forming the inner face of the package eventually contacting the food product.
As is known, packages of this sort are produced on fully automatic packaging units having a supply station fed with reels of packaging material.
In particular, a continuous tube is formed from the web-fed packaging material in the packaging unit; the web of packaging material is sterilized in the packaging unit, e.g. by applying a chemical sterilizing agent such as a hydrogen peroxide solution, which is subsequently removed, e.g. by heating and evaporation, from the surfaces of the packaging material.
The sterilized web is maintained in a closed, sterile environment, and is folded into a cylinder and sealed longitudinally to form a tube.
The tube is fed in a first vertical direction parallel to its axis, is filled continuously with the sterilized or sterile-processed food product and is heat-sealed at equally spaced cross sections by two pairs of jaws to form pillow packs each having a top and a bottom transverse sealing band, i.e. a band extending along a second direction orthogonal to the first direction. Pillow packs are separated by cutting respective sealing bands and are then fed to a folding station, in which they are fold so as to form respective packages.
Reels of packaging materials are normally stored onto a pallet at the storage station and are subsequently taken from such pallet and loaded into the supply station of the packaging unit.
More precisely, a first manipulator takes the reel from the storage station and a second manipulator takes the reel having its axis along a horizontal direction and feeds the supply station with such reel. The second manipulator comprises a loading equipment to correctly arrange the reel inside the supply station of the packaging unit.
A need is felt within the industry to streamline as much as possible the taking of reels from the pallet and the subsequent loading of reels onto the supply station.
Furthermore, a need is felt within the industry to reduce as much as possible the risk of damaging the external layer of packaging material as the reel is loaded onto the supply station.
Finally, due to the restriction of space within the supply station, a need is felt within the industry to facilitate the loading of reels onto the supply station.